Vanessa Winship

Vanessa Winship (born 1960) is a British photographer who works on long term projects of portrait, landscape, reportage and documentary photography. She has worked on numerous personal projects, predominantly in Eastern Europe, photographs from which have been exhibited twice in the National Portrait Gallery in London and prominently at Les Rencontres d’Arles; included in three highly regarded books; and have won her two World Press Photo Awards, ‘Photographer of the Year’ at the Sony World Photography Awards, and the HCB Award (the first woman to do so). She is a member of Agence Vu photography agency.

BIOGRAPHY

Winship grew up in Barton-upon-Humber, rural Lincolnshire. She studied at Baysgarth School; Hull Art College (which included a photography module); photography at Filton Technical College, Bristol; and photography, film, and video at the Polytechnic of Central London from 1984 to ’87, graduating with a BA (Hons). She met her husband, the photographer George Georgiou, on the degree course.

From 1999 she spent a decade living and working in the Balkans and surrounding territories of Turkey and the Black Sea. First she lived in Belgrade, for a short while in Athens, and five years in Istanbul.

Her work is about the concepts of borders, land, desire, identity, belonging, memory and history, how those histories are told and how identities are expressed.

Her books have been widely acclaimed. Sean O’Hagan, writing in The Guardian, said “She is perhaps best known for Sweet Nothings, one of my favourite photography books of recent years”. She Dances on Jackson was considered by Simon Bainbridge (editor of the BJP), Sean O’Hagan, Rob Hornstra and other reviewers to be shortlisted amongst the best photography books released in 2013. Phil Coomes, Picture editor at BBC News said “This is pure photography, and in my view, when viewed as a whole, is about as good as it gets.”

Winship is a member of the World Photographic Academy. In 2012 and 2013 she has been based in London and Folkestone, England.

Her first retrospective exhibition was at Fundación MAPFRE gallery in Madrid in 2014

Winship and George Georgiou travel together, alternating between one working and the other either supporting them or experimenting with their own photography.

She usesblack-and-white photographic film in natural light. For her work in a reportage – or street – style she has used a 35 mm hand-held camera, for her landscape work she has at times used a medium format camera and for her portraiture work she has at times used a 5×4 inch large format camera. She says of the difference between using 35 mm and large format that “Each methodology makes for a different relationship with my subjects [and] both have their own beauty for me”.